Dojo-Show-Go! Episode 87: Bella vs. Batman

[Espeon200]

http://www.ulms.me/media/touts/2010/04/tout_dsg_ep87.jpg (http://www.nintendojo.com/specials/view_item.php?1271951894)
Dojo-Show-Go! Episode 87: Bella vs. Batman (http://www.nintendojo.com/specials/view_item.php?1271951894)

Summary
If Hot Topic were going to make a Zelda game, what would it be? Find out in this episode, where we also talk about Okamiden's confirmation for North America as well as the rumored 3DS launch date. What's more, there's some great new feedback, and it forces us to confront if we really can talk about The Twilight Saga again. Oops, one of you brought it up. Wrath ensues.

You can send in feedback to showmail at nintendojo dot com or twitter.com/nintendojo (http://twitter.com/nintendojo)!

Recording Date
April 20, 2010

Hosts
Noah, Tidman, Andy and Greg

Contents
00:00:00 Introduction
00:02:48 What We're Playing
00:23:36 Puppies! Okamiden Confirmed for North America
00:29:12 Will 3DS Come Out in October?
00:37:49 Warm Fuzzies Feedback
00:51:48 Conclusion
00:53:05 Credits
00:54:49 Total Length

[dmgice]

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! That's so great! I usually work in sales, so I figure that I need to be able to know what I am selling. Since my other job was a desk job, I nabbed a bunch of audio books (Through less than legal means.. mostly) and would be at my desk listening to audio books while working. (Which, since it was a federal job, was completely allowed.) So, I would get through about 40 hours of stuff each week. So, yeah. I would download whatever the newest book trends were and a few of the lead singles off of upcoming albums.

I read all 7 Harry Potter books as they came out, they only take a few hours to read and seriously. He's kept alive by his mom's love and comes back ala Aslan because of a magic rock. Seriously, Rowlings? Seriously? I waited for 10 hours in line for Episode 1 and 4 hours in line for Episode 2 praying that it would justify Episode 1. Seen every Batman film, every episode of the original animated series, and read the comics up until Bane broke his back. Which was just a weak idea that was intended to try and gain some sort of sales after we all got burned on Super-Man's "death." Read Spider-Man religiously until the Scarlet Spider/Clone BS. (Seriously, Defalco...) Man, the mid-1990's were not a good time to be a fan of comic books from Marvel or DC. It was better to be a fan of Image, Dark Horse, or Graphic Novels during those days. Unless you were a fan of Antarctic Press. Than you fail forever. As for Star Wars and horrible incest? Depending on what you do and do not take as canon, that's a bit of a tough call there. It's gotten quite ridiculous over the years and Lucas does nothing to help it. Go watch the original films again or read old magazines on the hype leading up to The Empire Strikes Back. The whole Han Solo/Luke Skywalker/Leia Organa love triangle is ridiculous. Seriously, there was the equivalent of Team Luke/Team Han speculation. But I love those franchises despite some of the stupid and ridiculous aspects of them. Part of really liking a franchise means that you accept the good with the bad. As much as I think the Final Fantasy series should have ended on the Super Nintendo, I have to begrudgingly accept Final Fantasy 7 through 12. I'm still not ready to accept Final Fantasy 13 though. Give it some time.

As for Twilight? It's an acceptable take on vampires. Vampires aren't a set in stone principle. They vary from lore to lore. The Vampire Lestat is different from Hellsing's Alucard. Tru Blood is different from 30 Days of Night, Let The Right One In, Nosferatu, Tsu Hark's Vampire Killers, Daybreakers, Ultraviolet, and so forth. I kind of forced myself through the first two books in that Twilight series and actually thought the third and fourth books were pretty good. Considering that the third movie has an actual horror movie director running the show is promising. They are aimed at a female audience, which means they suffer from the same tropes as Anne Rice and some Charlene Harris novels. I've read and enjoyed books about a vampire BUNNY for crying out loud. (Bunnicula is so under appreciated.)

What I find interesting in Meyers take on the genre is that it fuses an interesting morality system into the genre and attaches an interesting animal quality to her vampires that others do not. Most of the time we have Vampires being similar to certain kinds of mammals. Meyer attributes them closer to snakes where they are faster in water, have skin that shines like scales, infect people via a type of venom, and identify prey by almost entirely by scent. Werewolves are mentioned in the Twilight series of books and are the same as they've always been. (Moon and all.) The fourth book delves into Dampir-esque things (Think D from Vampire Hunter D). The tribe in the books are based off of skin-walker lore.

If anything, a legitimate critique of the books would have to be based off of the inherent chauvinism in the books. Bella's initial attraction to Edward is because he's abusive toward her. This is perfectly acceptable in the series for some reason. Even more so in Meyer's book The Host which has a weird Blanche DeBouis feel to the Heroine that would make Tennessee Williams proud.

Okay, that was a bit winded and it sounds like I'm intensely defending the Twilight franchise. It was part of my job to sell books. So I had to learn everything I could about some of the most silly franchises. Yes, I forced myself to learn about Halo's cliche storyline (Although planet glassing is kinda cool and Reach might be fun), read both of Obama's stupid books, read up on on stupid Soap McTavish, read up on the world of Vestroia and force fed hundreds of hours of sales/marketing/management books from Blue Ocean Theory to the Three Meter Zone. I think we're here for a short time so we should try to absorb as much as possible. Yes, there's bumps on the road for many things.. but it's worth it to invest the effort to absorb things. I've read almost all of H.P. Lovecraft's works, suffered through much of Herman Melville's books, and read everything that Ayn Rand has written. I feel better and richer for having done that.

The secret is to never really sleep and to learn to do three or four things at once. While writing this out, I was trading pokemon between Platinum and Silver, while listening to a podcast on my PSP, monitoring Facebook, Monster, Indeed, and LinkedIn on my browser tabs and wandering up and down in some grass in Pearl to level up a Dratini. All while wearing my pokewalker and drinking soup. It's not too hard to teach yourself to do it. Start by listening to orchestral music, concentrate on single instruments in the music as you listen. Once you can focus on that, expand it to only following two of the instruments. Eventually, you'll be able to concentrate on a wide scope of things. Also remember that you don't need all of the information being passed along. You can pick pieces and latch onto bullet points.

For those who really want to keep up with the weird Twilight fans: the proper answer for a guy to give when asked "Team Jacob" or "Team Edward" is: "Team Alice." Just look up "Ashley Greene Sobe" in Google. She plays Alice in the Twilight Movies and you know you want to be on that team. ;-)

[xeacons]

Super Mario Galaxy's about a fat dude who's been addicted to shrooms for the last 25 years! Now he's seeing stars!

Final Fantasy 7 is a sob story about 2 lovers separated by death, the Romeo and Juliet of games (and they say games ain't art)!

Myst is about how easy it is to get sucked into a good book.

P.S. Love you guys, but it's pronounced "zek-uh ns", rhymes with seconds."

[dmgice]

Final Fantasy 7 is a sob story about 2 lovers separated by death, the Romeo and Juliet of games (and they say games ain't art)!

At no point in FF7 are Barret and Cloud separated by death. I think you have it confused with 10 and 10/2. ;-)

[Hbomb]

Ok, I'm sorry I insulted Twilight. Can we get back to talking about games now?

[dmgice]

Ok, I'm sorry I insulted Twilight. Can we get back to talking about games now?

Naw. It's cool. Quick! We need some more gross understatements about popular franchises!

[th3-king]

I just wanted to point out that it seems kind of strange that while defending Twilight you said Star Wars is "loaded with incest" when Twilight has that whole necrophilia thing going on, just sayin'.

That said I will say I have no interest in reading/watching Twilight, mostly because I prefer my Vampires to be nightmarish creatures, not nice guys, they should spend time in castles, not schools, they should burn up in the sun, not sparkle in it, but if you want to read Twilight I don't care, I have no reason to hate the fan base.





and just make it easy and say "the king."

[dmgice]

I just wanted to point out that it seems kind of strange that while defending Twilight you said Star Wars is "loaded with incest" when Twilight has that whole necrophilia thing going on, just sayin'.

That said I will say I have no interest in reading/watching Twilight, mostly because I prefer my Vampires to be nightmarish creatures, not nice guys, they should spend time in castles, not schools, they should burn up in the sun, not sparkle in it, but if you want to read Twilight I don't care, I have no reason to hate the fan base.





and just make it easy and say "the king."

Sleeping with the undead isn't necrophilia. They're not dead. :p The majority of vampire stories have that sex aspect to them anyways. Most of the nightmarish aspects of vampires are in the Twilight books. (Part of the second and most of the third, and fourth.) The "Cullens" are the kind of wussy vampires that you see in apologist fiction like Blade, or Tru Blood. Everything else around them is the normal bloodthirsty type of vampire.

Also, vampires are supposed to turn to dust in sunlight. Not catch fire or explode. Trolls explode, and Succubus/Incubus catch fire. Although there are some vampire fictions where they start being covered in boils and such.. similar to this.

http://www.wellness.com/reference/allergies/sun-allergy-photosensitivity/

If you're looking for vampire fiction where the vampires are just nightmarish creatures hell bent on devouring humans.. there's really very little out there that doesn't try to inject some sort of humanity or sex into the vampire genre. Even the better movies like Let The Right One In have "compassionate" vampires in them. The last vampire film to feature an "unsexy" vampire is Nosferatu with it's Count Orlock. If you want all of your vampires to look like rats, then it's back to the silent film era with you. Even the novel by Bram Stoker interjects humanity and sex appeal into Dracula.

The interjection of humane attributes into the vampire genre is because vampires are kind of lame to begin with. They don't work well as an antagonist without the interjection of human qualities. "Oh, no! If this thing bites me, I live forever with some small caveats!" That's lame. You keep your sentience, unlike zombies, and you gain new abilities. What's scary about that? You have to interject human emotions, tendencies, or selfish motives to make them "scary."

To reel this back into video games, let's look at the most prominent series to feature vampires: Castlevania. There's really no motivation to kill Dracula without human interaction. If Dracula were just another "animal" that exists to hunt food, like a wolf or a bear, than Dracula is just part of nature and there is no real reason for the Belmonts to hunt him.

The Belmonts hunt Dracula because he has human natures like a lust for Power, Greed, and a Cruelty to his actions. Those are the reasons that Dracula has to be destroyed. In the Castlevania series, you are either rescuing someone Dracula has kidnapped, preventing the return of Dracula because of fanatical followers, or hunting down Dracula to avenge someone. There's always a reason for hunting Dracula that does not border on his animal nature; but on his "human" traits.

Dracula does not sparkle, but he certainly does not burn up in the light of day. In fact, sunlight does not really have an effect on Dracula in the Castlevania series. Maybe we should disregard them for that reason? I mean, we have Aria of Sorrow & Dawn of Sorrow where Dracula (Soma Cruz) is an emo kid with issues about being what he is. Kind of like the Cullens in Twilight or Alucard in the Castlevania series. Hmm. I think that bit of self-loathing makes the vampire genre more interesting. Imagine how boring the Blade series of books would be if Blade was okay with what he is. Maybe you should probably like a different genre.

As for Star Wars? It's just a rip off of a few old episodes of Dr. Who mixed in with a big helping of Flash Gordon. It's okay if we disregard it. hehe. :rolleyes:

[th3-king]

Now we are just getting into technicalities, my main point is I don't want to read Romeo and Juliet with vampires, I want my vampires to be scary, and/or cool and fight people and stuff like that.

[xeacons]

Cloud and Aeris, not Barret. (I KNOW they weren't ACTUALLY lovers, but you know they had a thing for each other they couldn't reveal; you could see it in their eyes!) Work with me here.

[th3-king]

I'm pretty sure that was a joke.

[dmgice]

Cloud and Aeris, not Barret. (I KNOW they weren't ACTUALLY lovers, but you know they had a thing for each other they couldn't reveal; you could see it in their eyes!) Work with me here.

You are just a Cloud/Barret denier.

[dmgice]

Besides, it's ZACH and Aerith. Remember Crisis Core?

[juno2023]

Finally have been able to (start to) listen to the podcast.

I have yet to play Okami. If I get a job, I will be able to afford games again, and will be sure to check it out.

[wampdog29]

DMGICE

So you obviously have a huge problem with FF7. First you start making fun of it, and then you don't even realize that you can see the whole story of Zach and Aerith (I like Aeris more) in FF7. You're just not bad ass enough to find secrets in FF7 so you diss it.

[dmgice]

DMGICE

So you obviously have a huge problem with FF7. First you start making fun of it, and then you don't even realize that you can see the whole story of Zach and Aerith (I like Aeris more) in FF7. You're just not bad ass enough to find secrets in FF7 so you diss it.

There's a lot more details into their relationship in Crisis Core. Also, Zack is always better than Cloud and always will be. Seriously, did you even play Crisis Core? Even in his quick appearances in Advent Children, Zack is still 9,999X cooler and better than Cloud. Cloud is still a mewling and petulant emo kid in that one too.

Any real fan of FFVII would know the truth. :P

Cloud is lame. Zack is awesome. The only real reason anyone cares about the events after Crisis Core is because of the presence of Reno.

Also, you can get Cloud and Barret on a date in FFVII if you're mean enough to the other girls. It's pretty funny.

FFVII's only real problem was that it was a huge step backwards compared to FFVI. The Materia system was clunky, and they ditched Amano's art designs in favor of Nomura. There were a lot of technical issues with the title as well; but Square ironed those out by FFIX, which is superior to FF7 in game engine. Story wise: FFIV, FFVI, and FFXII still completely destroy FFVII. Even Vaan is a more interesting character than Cloud. FFXII was just saddled with a pretty clunky game engine. Not as bad as the Draw System in FFVIII though.

[wampdog29]

Yeah, trust me. I found every secret possible in that game. Also materia was the best system ever thought up. They just need to use it in another game to better perfect it.


Oh, and FF13 still sucks...

[dmgice]

Yeah, trust me. I found every secret possible in that game. Also materia was the best system ever thought up. They just need to use it in another game to better perfect it.


Oh, and FF13 still sucks...

Materia needs some more tweaking and it will be fine. Thankfully, they abandoned the Draw System from FFVIII for the most part.

Personally though, I liked the idea of wear and strengthening in FFII and Vagrant Story. Those are systems that need to be revisited for tweaking.

[th3-king]

Using Materia sucked, IMO.